NEW YORK -- If your mother has never seen your face -- if you have never had a face to be seen -- if, in a sense, you have never been born -- do you have a mother? If your mother has always called you "son," can you ever really become her daughter? For...
By Shira Schoenberg, JTA
• Published April 30, 2012
BOSTON -- On a recent Sunday, Ayla Watson celebrated her bat mitzvah.Ayla, who has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and other behavioral difficulties, ascended the bimah and recited the Torah reading for Rosh Chodesh, the new month. The service...
By Rabbi Roxanne J.S. Shapiro
• Published April 25, 2012
The double portion Tazria-Metzora is abundant with everything we need to know about dealing with skin diseases and bodily infections. Offering us more than a search on the Internet, we are taught not only the signs of these diseases, but how we should...
Matthew, son of Jodi and Michael Kaplan of Creve Coeur, knows how fortunate he is just by eating a nourishing breakfast before school. Or by having a healthy snack prior to his sport practice and special food to celebrate a birthday or other happy occasion....
By David Baugher, Special to the Jewish Light
• Published April 25, 2012
The photos are both simple and stark. There is a Klezmer duo in Buenos Aires, a circumcision in Uzbekistan, a musician at a New York soup kitchen. Set in crisp black-and-white, dozens of scenes captured by Israeli native Zion Ozeri reveal an evocative...
From May to December 2011, there were 3,455 reports of child abuse/neglect in St. Louis County. Each day the Jewish Family & Children’s Service Child Abuse Prevention Program works to reduce this number. Its four-tiered, evidence-based prevention...
WASHINGTON—Thanks to hip-hop superstar Drake’s latest music video, there are now far more eyes focusing on Temple Israel’s bimah than there are even during the High Holidays. And even though the song’s lyrics are decidedly more profane than sacred,...
Congregation Shaare Emeth will present “God, Wilderness, Doubt and Faith: A Weekend with Rabbi Jamie Korngold,” April 20-22. Known as the “Adventure Rabbi,” Korngold is a Reform rabbi who is nationally recognized for her pioneering work combining...
The H.F. Epstein Hebrew Academy will honor Dr. George and Darla Grossberg at its 69th annual gala on April 29. The honorary chair for the event is Gabe Grossberg. Dr. Grossberg is the Samuel W. Fordyce Professor and Director of Geriatric Psychiatry...
An Israeli hotel denied the use of a Torah scroll to a group that intended to use it in a mixed-gender service. The religious supervisor at the hotel at Kibbutz Shefayim refused to allow a group of students from the Conservative Solomon Schechter Day...
By Rabbi Mordecai Miller
• Published March 21, 2012
“Animal Sacrifice!” Not exactly a concept that excites modern sensibilities in Western society. Yet this is what confronts us every year as we begin the third book of the Torah, Vayikra or Leviticus. Setting aside our aversions to the notion for...
The fourth annual community-wide Shabbat St. Louis worship service will take place from 10 to 11:30 a.m. on Saturday, April 7 at Congregation Shaare Emeth, 11645 Ladue Road in Creve Coeur. This year’s service will include the festival liturgy for the...
